Cover Image: The Climate Change–Resilient Vegetable Garden

The Climate Change–Resilient Vegetable Garden

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Member Reviews

Nonfiction | Adult
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What a challenge it is to be a gardener these days! Here in the interior of British Columbia, summer drought is always the big issue, but in the last two years, grasshoppers have decimated my dahlias, rhubarb, beets and other leafy plants. This winter, as I’ve been reading this book, Canada went from an astonishingly mild December to a bitterly cold January. At least that brought some white stuff, which we desperately need to build the snowpack that will sustain our forests and grasslands and reduce the risk of wildfire. Oh right, the summer smoke! And the rising summer heat – the 2021 heat dome killed my blueberries and a young cherry tree. Sigh. Thus the need for this book, which is written by an award-winning gardening journalist based in Wales, where flooding and rising heat are the big threats, along with new pests and diseases. All topics are addressed in this 208-page illustrated book. Eleven chapters address everything from soil health (Building Resilience from the Ground Up) to saving time, effort and money by borrowing and repurposing materials to throwing out the idea of tilling tidy rows in favour of no-till mixed beds that thwart pesky bugs and disease. But not all bugs are bad – Stoddart makes a case for building biodiversity and using natural predators to manage the pests. (I adore that bug hotel!) She also provides guidance in planning ahead for flood and drought threats, designing your garden with climate change in mind, building your own structures to protect crops, water collecting and conserving, seed saving, making your own compost, and planting with a plan – from companion planting to including naturally resilient options like kale and arugula lettuce. There’s a short list of resources, and an excellent index. While there is a lot to like here, I particularly appreciate Stoddart’s emphasis throughout on the importance of the gardener’s resilience. She reminds us that gardening is an act of hope, a source of comfort and joy and a place of peace and strength. Gardening gives you joy as well as food. So dig in! My thanks to Quarto’s Cool Springs Press for the temporary reading copy provided digitally through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
More discussion and reviews of this title: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/173404031

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Another great handbook to help you make the most of your home garden. Good ideas for those with limited resources, changing climate, and beginning knowledge.

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Beautifully collected information that will help even beginning gardeners to make changes that will make their garden more sustainable and stronger.

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If you're having difficulty keeping up with climate change in your garden, this book will help you learn some great techniques to help you battle climate change in your garden.

I found this book easy to understand and lots of pictures to help along the way, I learned quite a few ideas from this book that will help me battle the heat in Tennessee. Tips and recipes are added too, you can't lose with starting you're garden with this book.

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I have been looking for a gardening book that revolves around climate change and this book was exactly that! I am so happy to have had the chance to read and review this book. The Climate Change-Resilient Vegetable Book is split into chapters starting with being a resilient grower. I really liked the chapter titled 'Climate Change-Friendly Garden Design Ideas' because we need to start thinking about how to adapt to some of the consequences of climate change. This is a great guide for beginner gardeners or more advanced gardeners wanting to help the planet a bit more. Overall, it is a fantastic guide for gardening and weaving in ways to attract and support wildlife at the same time. Also love that the book gives ideas for saving money and other resources such as water. I haven't fully planned out the spacings for where I'm going to grow what, but now I will be looking to plant flowers and vegetables together which can act as a natural pest control!

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This is a great resource for new or experienced gardeners. I appreciated all the tips about all kinds of gardening issues facing us with a changing climate, from fire protection to what to do if the garden floods to what to plant that's drought tolerant. There's information about saving seed (easy ways!), making your own seed starting mix without peat and with easy things like shredded leaves, indoor gardening, pest control, and much more. There are lots of photos of the author and her own garden, and I appreciate that she's a busy woman who doesn't make it into some enormous project that would take hours every week, but shows how anybody can make a more resilient garden. Highly recommended.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

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From soil to gut (and mental) health, Stoddart is taking a wholesome approach to climate change gardening.
I´m an occasional, amateur gardener, but I´ve been thinking about investing a bit more time and interest in growing herbs and berries than I´ve been able to before.
A wild and natural garden has always been my leading principle and that´s why I was especially curious about this book. The Climate Change-Resilient Vegetable Garden is all about being as friendly as possible to the natural world while growing your food.
There´s a lot to recommend about this book - it´s full of clear, concise information, and it´s resourceful, smart, and inspiring (saving resources, repurposing and recycling were my favorite subjects). It´s exciting and motivating as well - made me want to go out and make a hugelkultur bed!
As if all of this was not more than enough, there´s a resources page full of other books to explore, which is consistent with a thought from the very beginning of the book - that working together with others is key.
The Climate Change-Resilient Vegetable Garden is a great book to have at hand for regular consultation and I will be recommending it wholeheartedly.

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I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review—an interesting book about gardening without impacting climate change. I live in a small apartment, so there are not as many options for me to use, but a few.

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The Climate Change–Resilient Vegetable Garden is a sobering and well written book about regenerative gardening within the constraints of a rapidly changing climate written by Kim Stoddart. Due out 6th Feb 2024 from Quarto on their Cool Springs Press imprint, it's 208 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.

The author's clear and long experience (and love of) gardening comes through very clearly. This is a well written, illustrated, concise guide to gardening including lots of tips for best practice to navigating our way through unprecedented and rapidly worsening climate challenges.

She talks about our interconnectedness and our dependence on other species in terms of stewardship and regeneration (where possible). It's nice that she also tackles over-dependence on power tools and chemical treatments. The book touches on seed saving, planning, and executing garden plans, species selection, and with a large focus on wise resource use. The specific aim of the book is food-production/vegetable growing, and they take up the bulk of the content.

Four and a half stars. This would be a great selection for public or school library acquisition, home use, smallholders, allotment/community garden groups, and similar.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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I really enjoyed reading this book and it was filled with good information about gardening while keeping in mind climate change and it's affects on your garden. I loved the tips the author included and even some surprise recipes! Overall, this was a fantastically informative book that I cannot wait to gift to other family members that garden.

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